


stars, hide your fires

by orphan_account



Series: legend!verse [2]
Category: Supernatural
Genre: Alternate Universe, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-08-07
Updated: 2014-08-07
Packaged: 2018-02-12 06:18:16
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,443
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2098740
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/orphan_account
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>There are plenty of weird things about having a god as a roommate. There are also plenty of annoying things about having a god as a roommate. Dean’s willing to turn a blind eye to the weird part, seeing as how this guy hasn’t dropped down to Earth since Mesopotamia was still a thing, but the annoying parts are really kind of impossible to overlook.</p>
            </blockquote>





	stars, hide your fires

There are plenty of weird things about having a god as a roommate. There are also plenty of annoying things about having a god as a roommate. Dean’s willing to turn a blind eye to the weird part, seeing as how this guy hasn’t dropped down to Earth since Mesopotamia was still a thing, but the annoying parts are really kind of impossible to overlook.

For one thing, the small detail of gods not actually sleeping is kind of infuriating. If Cas were, you know,  _normal,_ it probably wouldn’t be that bad, except Cas is very definitely not normal. Exhibit A: it’s three AM, and Cas is watching the History Channel.

 

"Dude, what the hell," is Dean’s opener.

Cas doesn’t bother to look up from the screen. “Hello, Dean.”

"Cas. It’s the middle of the goddamned night. I don’t know how things work upstairs, but generally, down here, this is resting time."

"Gods don’t require rest," Cas says, and shrugs.

Dean sighs. “That’s great, buddy. But I need my four hours, so you wanna turn that down?”

Finally, Cas turns to look at him, squinting. “It is recommended that the average adult male get at least six to eight hours of sleep.” His face lights up. “This device is incredibly informative, you know. It is astounding how far you have come. Not many of the gods believed in the promise of your race. But you have proved them wrong.”

Dean stares. “Oh my God,” he says, finally, and then turns around and marches back to his room.

"The accurate term would be ‘oh my gods’," Castiel calls after him.

Dean sleeps for another three hours. When he does wake up, he’s presented with the sight of Cas’s face literally four inches above his. “What the  _fuck,_ " he splutters, and scrambles to get up in a sitting position. Cas backs away a few steps, blue eyes bright and alert, even in the pale blue light of 6am. "Okay, man, you cannot just waltz into my room whenever the hell you feel like it, we clear? Christ.  _Christ._ You’re gonna give me a heart attack.”

"I have a question for you," Cas explains.

Dean scrubs a hand across his eyes. What the hell. “Shoot.”

Cas bounces on his heels a little. “Do you think. Do you think it’s possible that I could meet with some of the other gods? The ones… the ones here, I mean. In your realm.”

Dean blinks. Something stings briefly in his chest. Cas likes Dean’s house. Likes his toaster, and his books, and the little aloe vera plant in his otherwise lifeless living room. And Dean’s caught him tracing the sigils on the walls at least four times already. Dean’s even discovered new ones; in the hallways, and on the kitchen cabinets, little ones scribbled onto the windows. He doesn’t know what they mean, but they carry a little warmth in them, when Dean runs his fingers over their surface. So he doesn’t think Cas wants to leave. But maybe he just sucks at reading people. Or. Gods, in this case. “I mean. Yeah. There’s shelters, and support networks, and unions. If you’re tired of living in this shithole.” Dean forces himself to bark out a laugh. Cas doesn’t have all that good of a grip on jokes, yet, but Dean’s working on it. Not that he’s the best teacher. His brand of humor is appreciated literally only by Victor Henriksen. Yeah. Victor’s the best. Good hire.

Cas frowns. “I don’t want to stay with them,” he amends. “I want to stay with you.”

"Oh," Dean says. "Um. Good."

Good, right. Good. Good that he’s gotten weirdly fucking attached to this doofus of a minor god with stupid blue eyes. Good that he maybe doesn’t mind it as much as he should when Cas watches History Channel too loud at 3am when Dean is trying to sleep. Good that Cas nearly burned the entire goddamn house to the ground trying to make pasta, and all Dean could do was laugh and extinguish it with one of those water spells he used to fuck up all the time in school. 

—

Since Dean seriously does not trust Cas to be alone in the house, Cas just comes to work with him. Sometimes he translates for minor gods that have never learned English, which is hugely fucking helpful, and other times he breaks the coffeemaker and repairs it with a flick of his wrist before anyone besides Dean can notice. So, what. With Cas, you win some and you lose some.

Victor thinks Cas is hilarious, Charlie says he’s adorable (whatever the fuck that even _means,_ Cas is a god _,_ not a kitten), and Jo claims that they’re going to be best friends.

"Wrong," Dean says, grinning smugly, and claps Cas on the back. "I’m already his best friend. I’m his  _only_ friend.” Dean can feel Cas frowning intently at the side of Dean’s head, and so he turns towards him. “What? It’s true.”

"That’s not saying much," Charlie points out. "I mean, you know. If you’re his only friend, and also his best friend, it’s not like you have any competition."

"Nobody asked you. Anyway, I’m your favorite, right, Cas?"

"Don’t say it," says Charlie. "Say Jo’s your favorite."

"Shut up, Charlie," Dean retorts, because he’s the fucking master of witty comebacks.

Cas looks terrified, glancing in between the two of them. “I don’t know what to say,” he mumbles, finally, and Dean has to sit down because he’s laughing so hard.

It’s a good day.

—

So, there’s a vengeful coffeemaker, and one of those hippie clairvoyants on 9th, and a lot of emergency water spells. There’s also too much History Channel and Hawaiian pizza and more mystery sigils traced into Dean’s walls. It goes sort of slowly and too quickly all at once, which is dizzying. But then there’s a Friday night when Dean looks up from where he’s sorting out old stuff from Salem that he never threw away, and Cas is digging through another one of the boxes. And Dean doesn’t say,  _don’t touch my stuff,_ which is what he should say. Instead he just sort of feels an odd rush of affection, a fleeting one, and then looks down, to the pile of junk at his feet.

And, well, maybe he did go and accidentally become best friends with a god. He still doesn’t technically know anything about Cas, except for the fact that he likes waffles and burgers and Charlie, and Dean’s couch, and Dean’s clothes. Cas does not like cars, or pie, or Black Sabbath, which are all pretty much major travesties that Dean is constantly struggling to get over. Cas is not a morning person, and Cas is maybe a little too human and not enough god. But that’s all good with Dean.

It’s weird, at first. Dean’s never been the greatest at maintaining friendships. Cas is a god, which means he’s not a human, so a lot of the basic rules don’t apply. Still. Dean treads carefully. This is a good thing he’s got. This is looking forward to coming home. He hasn’t had something to be thankful for in a while - never prayed for one, but maybe someone upstairs finally started granting wishes that people were too afraid to wish for.

He looks up at Cas, and says, “You’re not gonna find anything interesting in there, man. Just old memories.”

Cas faces him, looking very serious. He’s holding a textbook with some rune on the cover that Dean used to trace over and over again with the wrong side of his pen. “You are very interesting,” he says.

Dean laughs. “Right. Thanks.”

"I’m serious." Cas puts down the textbook, gingerly, like it means something, like it’s important, just because it’s Dean’s. And there’s a bitter taste in that. "I have always believed firmly that humanity carries significance. Your race has created much worth remembering." He smiles, cautiously. "And you have given me no cause to doubt that."

"Thank you," Dean says, after a long pause, and this time maybe he sort of means it.

Something changes in the room, a little thing, half a degree in temperature drop or the air flowing a little differently. A new smell or a sound at the tail end of a receding memory. Dean’s not sure what it is; just knows that it makes his stomach squirm in a not entirely unpleasant sort of way, and he thinks maybe he’d like Castiel to stay for a very long time, and keep telling him stories of archaic rocks, and things he learned about 1971 on the History Channel.


End file.
